


I Killed Our Family

by Effluvium



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 02:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18228851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Effluvium/pseuds/Effluvium
Summary: Rio turned in slow circles, looking around her at her small house and the dim lights and the way that the sun hadn’t stopped shining.  Despite the death of her beloved, the sun still shone, and her house still smells like cologne and his favorite chili.





	I Killed Our Family

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the movie (Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse). If you haven't seen it by now, please do, it's an absolutely amazing movie.

Aaron Davis is a murderer, but he wouldn’t run if the cops caught him at it. He wishes they would catch him now, on this rooftop, with his claws around his nephew’s throat.

When Miles ripped his mask off, he first thought of Rio, the beautiful, scarily sure woman his brother married nearly ten years ago. He thought of how she would weep, of how she would sit at this grave and sob.

Of how she’d leave flowers every day. Miles liked violets.

_“Please, Uncle Aaron.”_

Aaron liked his nephew alive.

He ripped his mask off, pupils inflated in concern and regret, Miles’ pinpoints in his honey-brown eyes. He knew he couldn’t do this, knew there was no way he would have any part in this mess.

_“What’re you waiting for, Prowler.”_

There was malice there. Cold and calm, a trademark for Fisk.

“I can’t,” Aaron rasped, letting go of Miles, hearing the sigh of absolute relief. “Run, Miles, run --”

It was a flash more than a bang. Blink and you’d miss it. 

Aaron heard the other Spider-Man, the one that should have been dead. No.

_No._

_No._

_“No.”_ Aaron watched the eyes stop seeing, watched the muscles in his nephew’s face relax, watched the eyelids fall just slightly over his honey-brown eyes as his body tipped backward and to the left, the wind catching his limpness just barely.

Another bang went off as Aaron caught the body, but it missed; he looked back, taking in the gun in Fisk’s hand as he rose from the ground. He saw the Spider-Man, the Peter, as the eyes of his mask narrowed and he nodded, just slightly, telling _him_ to run.

And he did, Miles clasped in his arms, smaller than he’d ever been. He ran as if the world was catching fire behind him, and maybe it was.

Aaron ran into an alley and laid Miles on the stone, thinking desperately _he’s just unconscious_ and _it’s okay, I just need to get him to a hospital_ and _he’s not dead._

_He’s not dead._

_He’s not dead._

_He’s dead._

He is. He’s gone, a bullet in the left side of his head, blood ceasing to spew from the wound. Aaron couldn’t find a pulse, couldn’t feel a heartbeat, and the fourteen-year-old’s chest no longer had the capability to rise on its own.

“Miles,” he whispered, throwing the gloves off, lifting his head to his chest, cradling him, tears jerking down his face. “Miles, I’m so sorry, I’m…”

“Hands up!”

Aaron Davis is a murderer.

“Step away from the… _no_.”

_“Officer Davis?”_

The gloves and mask were on by the time Aaron stood. He could hear his brother’s radio, knowing he’d already seen Miles’ face, his hair, his hands, and the bullet in his head.

_“Step away from the body!”_

There was more malice there, now, a fierceness, and Aaron dared to hope that he’d shoot him and he’d die, too.

_“Turn around!”_

_“Officer Davis, what’s the situation?”_

Aaron turned, quiet. He stepped towards his brother, watching the stoicism, the way he didn’t tremble, but also saw how he couldn’t keep his eyes off the body behind him.

“I’m going to catch the man who did this.”

Jefferson looked at the Prowler, teeth clenched tightly. “You did this.”

“I did not.”

“Then who did?”

_Fisk._

_A mob boss._

_A crime lord._

_I did, I lied, I got our family killed._

“I can’t tell you, you’re too emotionally unstable right now. You’ll get yourself killed, and that’s the last thing he would’ve wanted.

_“Officer Davis, who are you talking to?”_

“Did he suffer?”

_Never._

_Not at all._

Aaron shook his head, biting his lip behind the mask, telling himself not to risk it all right there. “It was like a light going out.”

Something seemed to deflate, then. The gun dropped and the big, strong Jefferson Davis slumped, stumbling past him and onto the ground, cradling the body as he called for an ambulance, for anything.

_“Officer Davis, please relay your situation --”_

“It’s my son, he’s…”

_“Sir --”_

“I need an ambulance.”

Prowler ran, then, up the building and away, perching on the rooftop of an apartment complex and staring down below, watching as ambulances filed in, ready for someone conscious, critically injured -- 

Rio stepped out of one, ready as ever. Ready to save the day.

Her cry echoed through the alley and into the street as she approached, screaming as she stumbled back, not wanting to believe it all.

 

Peter had followed the Prowler, praying and praying and praying.

_“Peter, what happened?”_

_“Parker? Where’re you and Miles?”_

_“Peter, where’s Miles?”_

Then he lost him, but instead heard a piercing cry, a strangled scream that arose from a paramedic, and that’s not what they do, they aren’t the ones screaming.

_“Mijo_ , _no, no!”_

Footsteps stumbled to a halt behind him, and he knew it was Gwen. Her signature was all over his brain, and as he turned, her mask was off and her pupils were dilated, blond hair in disarray and breaths coming in short puffs.

“No…” she looked up to Peter, panic in her features. “Peter, _no_ , this… this can’t be right….”

_“Ma’am, we need to get to him --”_

_“He’s my son!”_

They turned around, watching a cop hold the paramedic back. 

_“Rio, please….”_

_“Jeff, he’s… our son, he’s….”_

“What happened?”

Peter bit his lip. “The Prowler had him, but wouldn’t kill him. He knew it was Miles. Before I got there, Fisk….”

For a split second before the paramedics covered the body, the two could see him, see the black hair and smooth skin and the awful, disgusting wound in his head, the way the blood had dried against his temple.

And then he was a white sheet.

“Fisk killed him.” Peter looked down at her hands, at the way blood was staining her suit from beneath, the way she clenched her hands so hard her nails dug into her skin.

“Where’s the Prowler now?”

 

There was a pause as he walked in, and he knew they didn’t know how to react other than to attack.

But he was there, in his shorts and white t-shirt and green jacket, hands in his pockets, watching as each spider tensed in the room, reaching for their weapons and they knew, because he must’ve _radiated_ danger.

After all, Aaron Davis is a murderer.

“What do you _want_.”

It was the girl who spoke, the blonde one. She had a sweater on over her spandex but she looked ready to rip it off without a care in the world.

“I want to help.”

“Oh, do you?” She snarled, eyes narrow and fists tight. “Only took killing your nephew for you to see the fucking light.”

“Gwen, stop.”

A woman walked in the room, gray and old and wise. She looked Aaron in the eyes. “You were there when Peter died.”

He gulped, somehow intimidated by her small frame. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And you were there when Miles died?”

_When Miles died._

_When Miles died._

_He’s dead._

_He’s gone._

_Miles died._

“Yes.”

“Well,” the woman sighed, crossing her arms. “We need someone who won’t disintegrate away in this dimension to destroy the collider, so I guess that problem’s fixed.”

“May,” Peter groaned, giving Aaron a wary look. “I can stay, it’s fine.”

“I don’t need another suicidal Peter in my dimension.” She looked between the two adults. “How about you and Aaron here have a chat. Alone.”

And so they did; they stood across from each other in the destroyed living room, two chairs haphazardly placed between them.

“You want to kill Fisk.” It was Peter who spoke first, shocking the room out of silence. “You want to avenge him.”

Aaron nodded. “I have to.”

“I may have only known him for a few days,” Peter wrung his hands together as if in thought, “but something tells me he wouldn’t want you to.”

Aaron knew it was coming, because these spider-people don’t kill. If there’s one code they live by, it’s that.

“I’m not like you, Parker. I’m no hero.”

_I’m a murderer._

“But Miles was, and he sure as hell looked up to you as one --”

“Stop,” Aaron tensed, brows furrowed and jaw clenched. “Stop talking like you knew him, like he meant anything to you.” 

“Aaron --”

“You didn’t know him, Parker, alright? You don’t _know him_ , you don’t understand him -- you don’t know he has a scar on his right arm from when he tumbled down the balcony at my apartment. You don’t know that he was the smartest kid on this planet, and that his dream was to just paint and paint and --”

Parker was in front of him before he knew it, hands on his shoulders. “Aaron.”

“I got him killed.”

“No….”

“The light just _vanished_ \--” Aaron blinked, giving the man a wild look, hands on his head. “Everything just got dark, he stopped _looking_ at me, he started to _fall_ and I caught him and I hoped that he was okay, that it just grazed him, but it didn’t, Parker, it _didn’t_.”

“I know.”

“He’s dead. He’s in some morgue right now being examined for some fucking evidence to his killer and they’re never going to know, Parker; no one is ever going to believe that some crime lord killed a fourteen-year-old kid.”

He can see the girl and the others peeking through the crack in the door, but he ignores it, there’s just too much.

“I am a murderer, it’s what I do for a _living_. Somehow my brother ended up with this wonderful life on the right side of the law, with a beautiful wife and an amazing kid and I -- I just got him killed, and they’re shattered, did you hear Rio _scream_?”

Peter’s eyes were brown, like his, but they seemed so much more tired. He looked down at his pale hands, twisting them together and sighing. “I see ghosts, Aaron. I’ve seen them ever since I got here.”

There was audible noise from the hall, but they thought nothing of it.

“I see Gwen, this fifteen-year-old, and all I can think of is when her and I were going to school together in my universe.” His eyes darkened. “And then I got her killed.”

The setting sun flashed through the window, illuminating their faces just barely.

“I see May and I think of my May, and how she’s gone and in the ground, and how I got her killed, too.” Peter gave him a hard look, straightening. “I’m a murderer, too.”

“It’s different with you, you didn’t hunt these people, you cared about them --”

“And you cared about Miles.” Peter deflated, again looking at his hands. “When I saw you two on that roof, all I could think was _please let this end_. I saw the way you held him and I already knew, in that moment, that he was gone.”

Aaron clenched his teeth.

“I already saw Fisk’s gun, heard the bang, took in the angle -- but I still hoped he was alright.”

They both sat down, as if trying to defuse both of their tensions. They stared each other in the eye.

“This isn’t our call anymore,” Peter tilted his head, pointing at Aaron. “He’s your family, not ours. He was taken from you, and you’re the one who gets to decide what to do with Fisk.”

 

They had a few scares at the collider, but it ended well. Aaron had convinced Peter to allow him to shut it down, and the goodbyes were final and not very heartwarming.

“Will you tell your brother what really happened?” Peter hung next to him, inches away from Fisk’s unconscious body. “Who you are?”

Aaron nodded, ripping his mask off, looking at the claw marks on Fisk’s chest and the numerous bruises on his face. “I’m turning myself in, along with Fisk. Jeff deserves at least that much.”

Peter sighed, landing feet first and holding his hand out. “I… I hope you all find some peace.”

Aaron took the hand, shaking it, and watched as Peter plummeted into the energy, the flash of light disorientating him. 

Then it was off, it was over; Fisk was down, police were on the way, and… it was done. Miles was avenged.

_Was he?_

 

Rio couldn’t look anyone in the eye, but when Aaron walked through the front door, something was off.

“Rio….”

They hugged; there was something off there, too. His back was stiff and he didn’t quite seem so relaxed, and there was something heavy on his shoulders.

“How’ve you been holding up?”

She broke eye contact, catching sight of Miles’ physics textbook. “My son is dead, Aaron.”

He bit his lip. “Is Jeff home?”

“He’s in our room.”

She watched him walk off, and took in the slight limp and the difficulty he had getting up the stairs. From what she knew, he was an electrician.

Rio turned in slow circles, looking around her at her small house and the dim lights and the way that the sun hadn’t stopped shining. Despite the death of her beloved, the sun still shone, and her house still smells like cologne and his favorite chili.

The police had returned his belongings from the Visions Academy, and since then she’d taken off work and gone on runs. Her backpack always had Miles’ notebook in it, the one with his graffiti designs and secret locations. She wanted to find the one, his most recent one, and sit there for a while -- the _expectations_ , because she knew it was the last thing he ever created.

As Rio stilled, she heard shouting upstairs; there was a crash, and then silence, and she didn’t know what to think. Aaron and Jefferson loved each other, no matter what tragedy befell them.

“Oh, _mijo_ … where have you gone?”

And then they were down the stairs, Jefferson behind his brother with a hard look on his face, and there was something in his hands that she didn’t recognize -- a purple mask, one with black eyes and white lenses, and she didn’t get it --

“Tell her, Aaron.” 

Rio gave her brother-in-law a strange look. She took the mask from her husband, turning it in her hands, confused. “Aaron?”

“I’m turning myself in.”

_No._

 

Thirty-two years in prison -- that’s how long they gave him. He’d be sixty-five by the time he got out.

Aaron confessed to eleven murders, but not her son’s. His testimony wasn’t about those, though -- it was about Miles, and what happened on May Parker’s rooftop, and there was proof within those white lenses.

_“Fisk had ordered me to kill him, to kill all them if I could, and -- and my nephew, he took his mask off and I couldn’t.”_

He couldn’t.

Aaron couldn’t kill her son.

_“I was backing up because there was no way I would do that… I’d rather lay down my own life. And then… then….”_

Rio listened, already knowing what he’d say next. She’d listened to the tapes twenty times over by now.

_“And then Fisk just… he just shot him. He just fell over and I caught him and there was a bullet in his head, and he was limp.”_

“Rio, you should stop.”

She clenched fists, looking at the ratty brown notebook in front of her. “Did you know they played the footage from his mask, while I was there?”

“Honey….”

“I would do anything to spare Aaron from having to see that.” She stood, grabbing her coat and sliding some shoes on. “I’ve seen plenty of dead people in my time, Jeff, but there’s nothing like watching the life vanish so quickly from someone you love.”

“Where are you going?”

She kissed him, backing up. “I need to ask Aaron something.”

 

When she rubbed her hand against the wall, it came away slightly purple. She stood where her son had stood three days before he died, and it was chilling.

“ _Mijo_ , I hope you’re being treated right up there.”

Every day, she came with a small pot of flowers. She’d stop soon, because there wouldn’t be room, but would still come and water them and add another footnote to the wall in front of her.

 

_Miles Gonzalo Morales, my beautiful, beautiful boy._

_The only son I ever had._

_The kindest soul in this world, my_ mijo.

_I wish I knew the friends you made before they had to leave._

_We will get better, and maybe someday I’ll stop coming here._

 

Rio took the paint-pen off the wall, looking at that note. The art of _expectations_ loomed above her, the outline of her son’s body haunting its walls. 

“We will get better, mijo, I swear.”


End file.
